My dad is a cyber-hero

Thursday, 13 June 2013 18:30
administrator

Fathers need to get more involved in the cyber experiences of their kids today.

Mumbai. Being every child's first superhero, children believe that their fathers can wield their power to overcome all evil forces. In this context, the role of fathers in handholding their children through the increasing cyber dangers become increasingly paramount.

Fathers need to get involved in advising and guiding their digitally native children on their cyber experiences. The gravity of this matter is reflected in McAfee’s Secret Lives of Teens survey which surveyed over 1500 Indian parents and teens in 2012. The survey showed that while parental concerns prevail, teens do end up sharing more dangerous information online, contrary to their parents’ belief. This divide is attributed to the fact that Indian teens have increasingly active online lives but lack of parental assistance; substantiated through some of the following statistics-

-74 per cent of the surveyed teens believe they shouldn’t share their mobile number, but 30% of them still do. Whereas only 28 per cent of surveyed parents are aware that their teens posts their mobile number online.

-Even though 56 per cent of teens are aware that they shouldn’t share intimate / personal details of themselves, still almost 12 per cent of teens do post it online. And unfortunately only 8.5 per cent of surveyed parents are aware of this.

-Although 31 per cent of the surveyed teens have met their online acquaintances in real life, only 17 per cent parents are aware of this.

-35 per cent of the surveyed teens intentionally access nude images or pornography online, only 13.9 per cent parents are aware of this.

-Also it is important for parents to gain the trust of their teenagers as during the survey it was found that parents believed - 36.3 per cent teens cleared browser history, 21.2 per cent teens Used private browsing modes, 10.3 per cent teens disabled parental controls, 11.3 per cent teens have configured privacy settings to hide content from adults and 12.8 per cent have hid or deleted videos.

This suggests that there are some real threats for children online and responsible cyber parenting is the need of the hour.

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